It seems to me that with any sense of humor he could see the Dreiserian absurdities of how the circus people “ate the cod, bass, mackerel, halibut, clams and oysters of the New England coast, the terrapin of Maryland, the fat beeves, porks and cereals of the middle west” etc. etc. down to “the pink meated lobsters that grope their way along the sea-floors of America.”